© Small Business Marketing Solutions ~ White Paper Number 0005 ~ Dave Duncan ~ 2008

I get no respect...

One of the biggest complaints I hear from contract service providers is that they get no respect. A big question, what did you do to get respect? If you shipped everything on time, got no rejects and met the desired price point, is that enough? No, it is not. You have to toot your own horn and toot it loudly. Like in an old movie, "no brag, just fact!" Marketing is not only looking for new business; it is making sure you keep your old business. When you tell a client of all of the good things you do, you can then use the same statements to let prospects know. "Yes, XYZ Company is very happy with my work, in fact I was just discussing with them last week how I hit 100% on time delivery.

 

When you send out marketing blasts by email, it is advantageous to let your prospects know in writing that you deserve respect. Let them know your total on time delivery percentage, your lack of rejects and special savings that you were able to make for a customer. These kind of statements in writing give you the power of legitimacy that interests new customers and validates to old customers that they made a good decision in choosing you as a supplier. Its not fluff, it is a necessity in keeping your company name in front of people with a positive bent. You don't need the only time that your company name comes up is when you have a late delivery or a reject.

 

In the 60's one of the self-help gurus came up with a system that said if you do something good you get a gold star and if you do something bad you get a brown star. His formula was when you get 10 gold stars; it wipes out one brown star. How does your customer know about the gold stars? One way is to track deliveries, rejects and other measurements of doing business and providing those to your customer. A simple daily log of whether a job went out on the date required on your customers purchase order and totaled at the end of each month is one way to have gold star information at your fingertips. Even if you did not do well, then a note on what you are doing pro-actively to do better buys you gold stars.

 

Just remember, if you want respect you have to earn it and you also have to let people know what you are doing to gain their respect.

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